Category Archives: Ireland

On the Road II: Withdrawl

13 Wednesday Aug 2008

Posted by in Dublin, Grandma All, Ireland, Keenaugh, Lynne, Meredith, Mom, Nadia, Poetry, Roddy Doyle, Roundstone, Sam, Sligo, Spencer, St. Paul, Yeats

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August 2
The last couple of days have been tough. It’s pretty impossible to get any time away from my parents. All I want to do is sit quietly and watch people, but Mom won’t let me go anywhere by myself. I found my way around Dublin by myself for six weeks – they never gave us directions, just told us a time and a place. And yet, I managed to survive. But now, it’s like I have no ability – apparently, I can’t read maps or follow road signs. It’s horrible. Roundstone was a town that literally had one street. How am I supposed to get lost in a town that only has one street?
I don’t really have any time to do any real writing, either. Just documenting. Like, about the trip to the Aran Islands. That was wonderful. I was happy to be with my parents then – touring the island of Inishmore, seeing the fort, and I even got a sweater made ON the island. I’m really excited about it. But I can only spend three or so days with my parents, constantly by their side, before I start to feel like I’m going to strangle someone. I’m just not used to spending so much time with people.

Before we came to Sligo, we stopped in Cong, very small town, almost impossible to get lost, though we did manage to lose each other for a few minutes looking through the old monastery/cemetery there.
The Irish are very pragmatic when it comes to utilizing space. Nothing is wasted. When a church is falling apart (they don’t tear them down, because, unlike our country’s Puritan founders, they revere what they see as holy relics – the Puritans never liked to put any stock in earthly things) and the graveyard is full, they start burying people within the old building’s crumbling walls. But it was beautiful there. Huge trees, clear water, and green, green grass. By far the most beautiful grounds of any holy place I’ve seen.

In Sligo Abbey, there was a grave marker with the family name, date of death, and details about the mother chipped away. Or maybe they weren’t details about the mother. Maybe the (vandal?) chipper had removed the words, “May he rest in peace.”

Sligo Abbey is pretty full of death. Near the Abbey are the ruins of a private home built using stones taken from the Abbey that was out of use by that time (18th Cent.). I guess living on such a small island teaches a society how to make use of everything.
Went to the museum today. Mom, Dad, and Lynne are going to his grave to pay homage, but I just can’t. I can’t survive wtihout time to myself – silence and stillness. Both are necessary for me to maintain some semblence of sanity.


Sorry I Didn’t Visit, Mr. Yeats

A family built their home
With stones
Taken from the Abbey
And its cemetary
Where graves became unmarked.
Long lost Christian bone
Missing soul that disembarked
Years ago and gone
To worlds unknown
Perhaps beyond the Hill of Tara.

The alter stands alone
Remaining
Without its sacred tome
To give it meaning
So ferns and flowers grow
Through the cracks that are
Ever lengthening

A man’s existence can be erased
With a chisel taken to the stone
That once marked his eternal place
But now serves as a mantle
For the family’s fireplace
Inside their modest home.

August 3
Getting on a plane tomorrow. Good thing we’re not staying two nights in this B&B. The hostess is so uptight. She has little signs posted everywhere with the house rules. She has to have everything just so. Not the type of person who should be welcoming strangers into her home. It’s called Rathview House in Swords. Beware. Beware.
I did end up seeing Yeats’ grave. On the way out of Sligo, Dad stopped the car so Mom could get into her bag and I could have a look at the man’s grave. Not what I expected, but now that I’ve seen it, I realize that it’s exactly what Yeats would have wanted. Maybe even too elaborate for his taste. It’s kept very clean so that it looks like new. Also on the way out of town, I saw, from a distance, Queen’s Maeve’s burial mound. She’s purported to be buried standing up, facing the enemy. I read in “The Feckin’ Book” that in her time it was said that she bedded up to thirty men in a day. She must have been exhausted. My hat is off, Queen Maeve.
Stopped by to see Maggie Delaney on the way to Swords. Stayed for less than half an hour. We might have had more time if we hadn’t stopped in Ballyshannon first. There was a “French” market going on there. Apparently, “French” just means “open air” market to the Irish. There was nothing French about it. Except all of the French-speaking tourists.
Down the road from Maggie’s house is an old mill, all crumbling and full of trees, overgrown with ivy and moss and raspberry bushes.

I with we couuld have spent more time there, in Keenaugh, with Maggie and looking at the Mill, but we were off to Swords, where we ate at a tavern called The Cock and served boring food like the type you would get at Applebees. The menus said, “Tommy Guns, Burger Heaven, USA.” Weird. Our uptight hostess recommended it. Should have guessed that that anal retentive priss would sent us to a shitty place like that to get dinner. She probably thinks it’s rustic.
Still reading Bibbonne. This book has a lot of typos, but it’s really interesting. Learning a lot about rural life in Ireland from the 1920s to the 1970s.

August 8
Holy shit! So busy these last couple of days – and when I wasn’t busy, I sat on my ass and drank.
I read half of “A Star Called Henry” by Roddy Doyle on the filght home. It’s freaking awesome. Almost finished with it now. After spending a few days at home, we’re up in St. Paul to visit the Tessiers. Mom and Dad have taken Sammy to the zoo. He’s learned about a million new words since I last saw him. Now he babbles like he’s paid to do it. Meredith and Andrew are getting ready to go to a wedding and after Mom and Dad bring Sam home and put him to bed, we’re all going to sit down and watch “The Quiet Man,” which I’ve wanted to watch since the second week I was in Ireland. After visiting Cong, where it was filmed, I wonder if any of the locations will look familiar or if it all will have changed too much. At least we know the pub will look the same.

August 10
Left St. Paul this afternoon and arrived in Spencer at about 4:30pm. It’s bloody awful hot in the upstairs with no air conditioning. It’s hard to imagine that Grandma All’s house came from a catalogue for $600.
I’ll see Ilse in a couple of days and we’ll talk about how we miss Ireland. I felt really nostalgiac watching “The Quiet Man” though we were only in Cong for an afternoon. A little more than a week ago, it was.
I already miss Sammy, too. He loves water. His favorite things to do at home are to play in the kitchen sink (“washy” he calls it) and to play with a hose attached to a small, plastic fire hydrant that hooks up to the garden hose. He also loves bath time. He likes trucks and ball – “golf!” he knows. Daddy must have taught him about golf. He also loves to walk Nadia. She’s still very tolerant of him, though not quite as attached to him as she is to Meredith and Andrew. Mom and I make sure we spoil her whenever we visit. I gave her chunks of hamburger and the strips of pure fat from my bacon accompanied by maple syrup leftover from the awesome waffles Meredith makes.

Tonight we took Grandma out to dinner and showed her pictures from our trip. Tomorrow we’re taking her out to breakfast and then it’s back to Davenport so I can get my teeth cleaned. The dentist found two cavities a few days ago – one for each year since I was last there. Ooops.
John Rogers told us before we left for Ireland that the return home would be more difficult than the trip there. All I can tell is that I’ve been irritable.

On the Road

06 Wednesday Aug 2008

Posted by in Dublin, Ireland, Jayne, Keenaugh, Kenmare, Kris, Lynne, Maddie, Meredith, Mom, Olivia, Roundstone

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July 26
At the Hill of Tara. Rath of the Synods and St. Patrick’s church. The Mound of Hostages in the Royal Enclosure. Cormacs House south of Royal Seat.
I’ve been with my parents for less than twelve hours, and I’ve already got a headache. They’ve got this retarded GPS system that doesn’t know where anything is. Instead of reading maps and signs, they rely on this crappy machine with a loud voice that orders them around. dad keeps turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal.
The Hill of Tara was beautiful. I tried to talk to a man sitting there about the history of the place, but Dad pulled up next to me in the car and wanted to get to the airport to pick up Lynne. I wish I’d had more time there. The hill had more sheep shit than I’ve ever seen. And that’s the place where kings were crowned as early as 2,000 BC, maybe even before that.
At the Mill Bar bed and breakfast now – past Athlone. Nine-thirty and Lynne, Mom, and Dad still aren’t in bed. They’ve been awake for about 32 hours now. Probably more. We stopped to see Dominic’s aunt Maggie in Keenaugh on the way from Dublin to Athlone. She lives in a cottage that used to be the laundry house of a huge estate. In fact, she doesn’t actually have a house number for her address – it is simply, The Laundry. She was the one who was married to Uncle Mickey, who died about five years ago. Now she lives at the Laundry with just her two dogs. Behind the house is a canal where barges used to transport the Guinness out of Dublin. And the cottage still has its original doors. There’s a lot of history on that land. And still more sheep.
I have to write more on the Hill of Tara when I get to a computer that’s connected to the Internet. There were a lot of things that I didn’t know about it. I want to go back there someday. More driving tomorrow. I’ve got a book and a bag of apples.July 27
More on the Hill of Tara – 1798, Irish rebels used Tara as their stronghold because it was such a defensible position (as high ground tends to be), but they were defeated by British troops. The man in charge of the British troops sent three cartloads of whiskey up the road past the hill, knowing that the Irish rebels would intercept it, which they did. They subsequently became drunk – or, at least, not totally sober. The British troops were also more organized. It was a slaughter, as I understand.
We saw a monument to this event on the hill, but neither Dad or I knew what it was – it was all in Gaelic except the inscription on the back that told us the monument had been erected in 1922 by the IRA. Or was it 1936? I need the Internet, dammit.
The hill was also the site of a peace rally held by Daniel O’Connell – the rally demanded the repeal of the Act of the Union with Britain – the rally was in 1843. Then, from 1899 to 1901, these crazy British fuckers calling themselves descendants from one of the last tribes of Israel, tore the hill apart, without regard for the land’s history, searching for the Ark of the Covenant. Crazy fuckers.
Anyway, breakfast at 9am today. Then we headed out. Dad’s driving was better today, but still some close calls. We stopped in Adare for a few minutes to use a bathroom and dink around. There was a cool old church there dating back to the 1200s. I went inside and lit a candle for Father Conroy. I can’t find my glue stick to paste in the pamphlet I got. Later.
Then we went through Kilarny but didn’t stop, and on the way to Kenmare I insisted we stop at the Muckross Estate. It’s 2600 acres, I believe. The manor house was built in 1843 and we took a tour of that. Huge – Queen Victoria stayed there for a night once, but she’d informed the master and mistress of the house of her arrival six years prior. So the couple spent the next six years decorating the house in preparation for the Queen to arrive – they traveled great distances, to the Far East, to gather furniture. They also had furniture hand-crafted locally, new drapes, silk wallpaper that was hand-painted, a new driveway constructed, etc. Then, the day Vicky finally arrived, she came with her husband, Prince Albert, four of her nine children, 120 ladies in waiting, and 400 soldiers to serve as her personal body guards. The whole reason the owners of the house had been so keen to impress her was that they’d been hoping to be given the titles of Lord and Lady. However, two months after their visit, Albert died, and Queen Vicky went into eight years of mourning, during which time she declined to give out titles, large sums of money, etc. By the time she came out of mourning, the family (Herbert?) had gone bankrupt due to their inability to pay back the loans they’d taken out in order to prepare Muckross House for Queen Victoria’s visit. Sigh.
The house was lived in until 1933, when in was donated to the National Trust.
Speaking of the 1930s, we also checked out the traditional farm area on the Muckross Estate, where the National Trust keeps farms in operation exactly as they would have been in 1937, seventeen years before electricity came to the area. It was very cool. I drank milk straight from the cow, which, while warm, didn’t taste much different from the milk I buy at the store. Sweeter. We also had homemade soda bread with freshly churned butter. It was at least as good as anything they would have made in the kitchen of Muckross House, which was enormous and looked really cool.
By the way, “muck” means “pig” or “sow” and “ross” means “peninsula” – I think. The farms also had your standard cows and chickens and goats, ducks, horses, kitties, etc. They had examples of the poorest farm house, where there were two rooms and the kids would sleep six to a bed, and an example of a wealthy farmer’s house, which had four rooms excluding the kitchen and what looked like a common room. we had to rush back to get to our bed and breakfast at a reasonable hour. Didn’t get to see the Torc Waterfall.
On the way to Kenmare, the roads were terrifying. Rocks jutted out at the car and people came fast around the corners. Made me nervous for the Ring of Kerry tomorrow. Mom says she refuses to go with us. I’ll be sure to have plenty of cigarettes with me.
Tonight we’re sleeping at Annagry House in Kenmare, five minutes walk from the town center where we had dinner at a place called Foley’s. The beef and Guinness pie was delicious, though it could have been because I was starving – no lunch today. We all forgot to eat. The waiter was very nice – he even gave my parents a sackful of ice to take back to Annagry for their martinis. I’m staying in the room and drinking chamomile tea. So good. Next it’s time to read before bed. It’s ten after eleven and breakfast is at 8:30 tomorrow. Reading a short story collection by Sir William Trevor called “Cheating at Canasta.” It doesn’t say “sir” on the cover, but he has been knighted. I guess he’s not an arrogant prick.

July 28
Dingle – Murphy’s Pub
Had some good fish and chips and now we’re listening to a couple of guys play traditional Irish music. Guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin – I think that’s all. They’re singing songs I’ve heard but don’t really know.
We left Kenmare after stopping by the stone circle. Archaeologists think it’s about 3,000 years old. Fourteen stones make a circle and then there’s a large boulder in the center, mounted on three smaller stones, that marks a burial site. It’s great to be able to put your hands on something that’s been around for so long. One of the stones had a symbol on it called the Awen, which is a symbol with three rays expanding outward from top to bottom.
The ray on the far right represents male, and the ray on the far left represents female. The one in the center represents the balance of nature. I bought a ring before we left with a spiral that represents the sun and endless time.

I found a nice necklace for Olivia’s birthday present. She’ll be eight tomorrow. It’s a fairly simple Celtic cross. Mom bought a couple of nicer, more ornate ones for Kris and Meredith. Now I’m on the lookout for something with fairies for Jayne.
After checking out the local church, which was built in 1864 and had an awesome ceiling with woodwork made from materials imported from Brazil, we went to look at some of the lace samples from when Kenmare was widely known for its lace. Queen Victoria even commissioned some pieces for herself in 1885. Sister Mary Francis Clare started the industry (if it can really be called an “industry”) around the time of the Great Famine to employ local women. I tried to find a book about her, because she was a prolific writer and feminist, but there weren’t any at the Heritage center. She’s also known as the Nun of Kenmare. She later left the Catholic church and became a Protestant. In those days, I suppose no one just stopped attending church. But she was very critical of the Catholics until the end of her life, which came soon afterwards.
Then the drive to Dingle, which was awesome. We took a wrong turn – and when I say “we,” I mean Dad – and wound up on a back road that was barely wider than our car. It took us about twenty minutes to go a little over five miles, and we didn’t meet another car the whole time, thank god.
Stopped in Dingle Bay before we got to our B&B. On Inch Beach I waded in the ocean while everyone else sat in the car. It was overcast and a bit rainy, but it was beautiful. The waves were big enough for surfing. I love the sound of the waves crashing, and then the feeling of the sand coming out from under my feet as the tide sucks it back out. Worth the wet jeans and sandy feet.

It was nice enough to sit outside when we did get to the Baywatch B&B. We sat outside drinking whiskey and wine – with my Commie parents drinking gin – and talking with the owner, Tom, and some of the other guests. One was a woman from the County Down, and the other was a man who was born in Plymouth near Cornwall but is now an expat teaching at Queens College in the North. Both of them were quite interesting and gave me additional insight concerning the biolence and bad blood in the North. as a child, the woman’s school was bombed. There was also an Orange Hall near her home that was blown up repeatedly and rebuilt in the same place over and over because the government would give financial assistance to building owners who rebuilt after a bombing, provided that they rebuilt in the same place. This was to prevent people building somewhere – a shoddy building – expecting it or arranging for it to be bombed and then get government money to build a better building in a prime location.
Now it’s music time. These guys are maybe in their fifties, playing traditional songs for us tourists. They played “Grace” and “Fields of Athenrye” for us, which was nice. Dad and I might have hangovers.
July 29
Olivia is eight years old!!! I miss my little cabbage. One more week until I see her and Maddie, then a couple more days and we’re heading North.
My body totally crapped out on me today. It’s probably because I’ve been going tor almost two months now without any sort of break. I seem to recall a lot of sleepless nights and days full of coffee, cigarettes, and adrenaline. Today, I may go with Mom, Dad, and Lynne to see some archaeological sites and ruins. But I may also just want to sit on my ass, even though I got more than ten hours of sleep. Tonight will definitely not be a late night. Too bad our room at the Baywatch doesn’t have a bathtub – I’d be all over that shit, which a kettle of chamomile and a book. Yesterday I bought “The Feckin’ Book” full of Irish slang, insults, quotations, recipes, etc. There seem to be an awful lot of ways to say “she’s ugly.” I’m starting to notice a pattern here…

Went to a small museum about 20 minutes west of Dingle. They had the skeleton of a cave bear, which became extinct 200,000 years ago and a head that belonged to a bull mammoth. The bear had a sign that said not to touch it, but the mammoth didn’t, so I touched its giant tusks. They had some kind of smelly black stuff on them, probably to protect them from the oil on people’s hands. The bull is named “Millie” for some reason. Also saw lots of artifacts from all over Europe and ranging from the neolithic period to the Bronze Age.
We also stopped at the Dunbey promontory fort that was built in the Iron Age (after the Bronze Age, from 500 BC to 500 AD).
Most of its Western half has fallen into the sea. There’s an old clochann on the site, which is a Beehive-shaped building. Down the road, there was another bunch of beehive dwellings, which is thought to be the remains of a single family farm. Again, everyone waited in the car while I went to look at them. Probably for the best – the path up was steep and the rain had been so heavy earlier that day that there was a lot of water draining down the path – enough to constitute a small stream. My feet got pretty wet, but it was definitely worth it when I got there. The site has been pretty well preserved, and I was able to go inside some of the Beehives.
I stood in one of them that didn’t have a capstone on it, so there was a hole in the top. Still, it was relatively dry. The thing was built using a method called “corbelling,” which means the stones were tilted downward and outward to shed water. I stood there quietly for a few minutes and listened to the rain hitting the rocks and dripping through the cracks. I could hear the sheep grazing outside. The site is called Cahon Conor – Cathair na gConchuireach in Irish – and was probably built around 1000 BC, though they were being built somewhere between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, archaeologists are still arguing about it. The site had a great view of the ocean. I could just imagine it the way it was.
Also along the hills today were famine cottages – rural homes that were left to crumble after their residents starved to death or fled during the Great Famine. Every morning in the towns and cities, there would be the bodies of country people who had wandered into town in search of food but died during the night.
We were going to drive the rest of the way around the Dingle peninsula, but about 200 meters down the road from the beehives, a river had formed across the road from all of the rainwater rushing down the hill. We turned around and came back to Dingle. After some bad deli food from the SuperValue, I’m about ready for bed. It’s not even 8pm, but I don’t care. I’m feeling shattered. I’ll read some of “The Feckin’ Book” and then get to bed. Today I got another book called “Bibeanna: Memories from a Corner of Ireland.” Twenty-five women from the Dingle area talk about their lives and how New Ireland has replaced the poverty and pre-modern Ireland that’s gone forever. It’s in English and Irish, so maybe I can learn some more Irish words.
Three in the afternoon in Iowa. I wonder if Olivia is getting ready for her birthday party, or maybe it’s just winding down.

July 30
Roundstone. There’s a church outside the town with a graveyard like I’ve never seen. It’s essentially a bog, and people seem to have been buried pretty haphazardly. Because the cemetery is in a bog, most of the grave stones have crumbled and sunk into the ground over time – the oldest intact stone was from the 1890s. Sheep everywhere again. I try to “maa” and make them think I’m one of them, but they seem to know I’m mocking them. Sometimes a group of sheep will stare at me from a few meters away and I think they’re plotting my death.
Mostly just driving today. Scenic overlooks and such. Tonight we’re staying at the St. Joseph’s Bed and Breakfast in Roundstone. Great view of the harbor from here.
The owner, Christine, takes pretty good care of the place – clean, cozy rooms in a great location. The only thing the room is missing is a bathtub. For the first time in years I fel like taking a bath, and there isn’t one. Oh well. Most people take showers these days, I guess.
Getting up at 8am tomorrow to go to the Aran Islands – well, just one: Inismore. It’s supposed to take all day. So excited. Tonight I’ll read “Scientific American Mind” and get to bed by midnight. And listening to the Beatles. And drinking tea.

Final Weeks in Dublin

25 Friday Jul 2008

Posted by in Dublin, Haplin, Howth, Ireland, Irish Writing Program, Lynne, Martin Roper, Mom, Morrissey, Olivia, Poetry, S Kolman

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July 10
First assignment from Mary Morrissy – a poem about pain. Sweet. Pain is a cloudy, swampy place – being flattened between teeth and spat into a glass of ice water, but the glass is the size of a lake, two miles wide and ten miles deep with giant chunks of frozen, salty water with sharp edges so they cut you and then the salt gets into your blood.

Small, pink, sticky fingers
Pulling petals from a daisy
From the stiff, dry center.
How would you like to press your palm
Into this patch of sand?
She’s afraid it will break every bone in her hand;
She’ll pull it back, crushed and dusty.

The exchange of bits of rainforest.

St. Stephen’s Green doesn’t have nearly enough shelters for such a wet climate.
I can’t decide which is more fun to watch – the people or the animals. There is a woman in a smart, black suit, very feminine, and she’s standing with a girl who has dreadlocks and pants made from about fifty different colorful patches. The hippie girl is trying to teach the office worker to juggle.
There’s a girl who appears to have some form of mental retardation that I’ve seen many times before, but I don’t know what it’s called. She startled the crap out of me because she squealed really loud, almost like she was in pain, but then I realized that she was happy. She seemed to like the rain.
The rain is so fine and these trees are so old, very tall with many layers of branches, that I’m hardly getting wet. Most of the time the rain is like this – so light that I don’t even mind not having an umbrella with me. I’m bummed, though. The park was full of people, but no they’re all in a hurry to get away, out of the rain.
Now it’s chilly. Before the rain, it’s always hot – then afterwards, it’s cool so that I’m shivering, even if I’m comopletely dry. I think I might have to get wet, though. This isn’t showing any sign of letting up. I’ll hide under this tree a bit longer.
The flowerbeds are all very uniform. In specific shapes with straight edges, all planted in rows, no mixing of species, each b ed is made up of one kind of flower, and sometimes in the center there will be a tree or a fern. There are flowers in white urns, too. Grecian urns and fountains. One grecian urn; two grecian urns, and a fountain. Trickle, trickle, trickle…

She wandered into a world of pain again.

The sun has gone MIA. Cold now – no longer just chilly. Make a break for it?

July 13
I’ve spent most of this weekend trying to get my sleep cycle out of whack. I finally fell asleep on Saturday, but it was at 7am. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Meanwhile, my brain is suffering. My balance is off and my eyes won’t focus. Luckily, there’s not much here that requires using any brain power – at St. Stephen’s Green again. There’s a horrible band playing “A Bicycle Built for Two.” Maybe a group of seniors who are just learning or a class of kids aged 10-12.
I wonder how many of the people in the park today are tourists. There’s a group of kids with shopping bags that are giggling over some giant, fluffy, green leprechaun hats with beards attached. I still haven’t figured out what Olivia would like for her birthday. What would an eight-year-old like from Ireland? An eight-year-old who loves horses and dinosaurs?
Born in 1880 as John Casey, Sean O’Casey came into the world during a time when Ireland was just beginning its recovery from the Great Famine, and the events of the Famine directly affected O’Casey’s childhood, perhaps most notably in the poor health of his eyes. From a young age, O’Casey suffered from trachoma, a condition of the eyes that flourishes in an impovershed environment and the poor hygiene that invaribly accompanies said poverty. This condition not only caused him great physical pain, but negatively affected his scholarship, and he was often ostracized from his peers, who called him names like “scabby eyes.”
Fortunately for O’Casey, he had a mother, Susan, who defended him against the uncaring world and kept him socially involved by taking him with her to run errands around town. His older sister, Bella, used her school teacher to supplement O’Casey’s education that was lacking due to his illness and discrimination/archaic academic instruction.
Then, another blow came when Bella got married, against Susan and Sean’s wishes, to a soldier called Beaver. Nora and Jack’s characters in Plough and the Stars are remeniscent of this couple – Bella was eight months pregnant when she married, and Beaver still had five years left in the military. The way O’Casey handles Jack’s abandonment of Nora in favor of a position in the Irish Citizen Army gives insight into O’Casey’s attitude toward Beaver.

At Peter’s Pub again. I so don’t want to go grocery shopping or write that damn poem, but I must, I suppose. After several days of reading and thinking about it, I’ve still got only a vague idea of what I want to write about.
Had to leave the park because some lady sat down right next to me with her screaming baby. I understand that babies cry, but at least make some effort to calm the child as long as you’re going to assert yourself into the space where someone is so obviously trying to sit quietly and think.

July 17
Poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”
Getting our essays back in Halpin’s class. I’m nervous. More nervous about my drama essay – I was so out of it when I wrote it that I can barely remember what I wrote about.
Seamus Deane’s novel, Reading in the Dark, linked to national history within the family history. The skeleton in the closet is embedded in the War of Independence.
Must begin writing short story for Mary Morrissy.
Londonderry – British or Protestant
Derry – Catholic
Same place, known by two different names by different groups of people.
Catholic nationalists in Derry were pretty much second-class citizens, living in someone else’s state.
In Mary’s class, we read an article called “Wedding and Beheadings” written by a writer/director about filming the beheadings of prisoners by Al Queda. It made me feel sick.

Men always seem to think women are strange, unfathomable creatures – which, maybe some of them are, but there’s no point in bothering with those, anyway. They don’t seem to understand that we’re actual people – we want the same things they want. The only real difference I can think of, aside from the physiological, is our common reluctance to engage in casual sex – which I guess ties into the physiological. We want to know whose kid we’re carrying.
I wish I could enjoy the one-night stand. Stupid hormones and residual puberty post-adolescent nonsense. That’s why kids need to start having sex in high school – so they can have a little taste of heaven before their lives turn to shit for the next forty years.

I met a dude on the street who works for Sight Savers International and we got to talking. He seemed impressed by my knowledge of Dublin’s problem with trachoma during and after the famine – I didn’t mention that I only recently grained this knowledge by reading a biography about a Dublin playwright. He did tell me, though that most Dubliners are unfamiliar with this disease and the fact that it used to be such a problem.
I’ve noticed that pubs here post signs that people should use mobile phones outside. That’s a good policy. I would support that in the U.S.
July 21
Howth was fantastic. Got a bag full of books and some wildflowers from the hills, where we hiked for a couple of hours. Maybe I’ll have time to take Mom, Dad, and Lynne there.
I like this pub. It smells musty like an old man’s house. And there are a lot of older men here, so I guess that makes sense. I’m trying to listen to what they’re saying, but they’re all talking at once, and it sounds like most of them have rural accents. My ears need time to adjust to the rural Irish accent from the Dublin accent.
It’s a nice big pub. And calm. Maybe it’s hopping in the evening, though. It’s only 7pm now. This place is called Hartigan’s.
July 22
After Hartigan’s, I met Martin, Sarah Kolman, Amanda, and Sam at the National Concert Hall for an excellent performance. I really enjoyed it. I haven’t been to nice, classical concert for a long time. Mostly just local bands in pubs and the student union. Then, we went back to Hartigan’s. I barely remember walking home.

Bob and Cat are a couple having an argument about where to put items of furniture around their apartment. Rather, Bob is offering suggestions that Cat immediately shoots down, and Bob is starting to get tired of it. It’s his apartment, too, damn it. He has to live here, come home to it everyday, and maybe he wants the leather arm chair near the window.
“No,” Cat says when he suggests this.
It is a firm no, and often bickering for a bit, the arm chair winds up across the room in front of the fire place. Bob isn’t really sure how he lost.
Should the couch go against the far wall.
“No,” Cat says, and the couch is placed directly in front of the television, in the middle of the room.
Bob wants the end table to go next to the couch.
“No,” Cat says, and the end table ends up next to the arm chair.
Bob puts the papasan next tot he couch.
“No!” Cat says.
The papasan goes out on the curb.
Bob suggests putting the floor lamp next to the arm chair so he can read.
“No!” They say together, and Cat grows angry because Bob is mocking her.
She leaves the livingroom and angrilly flops angrilly on the bed in their room. She curls up facing the wall away from the door. After a while, Bob comes to stand in the doorway. He watches her lay motionless for a bit. Then he goes to sit near her on the bed. Her back is to him. He wants to touch her. He starts rubbing her shoulder, and his hand makes its way down her back. There is lust in the way he is rubbing her back.
“No,” she growls.
Bob sighs and retreats to the bathroom to shower and jack off.

July 23
In Ireland, it’s common to refer to a mentally retarded person as being “touched” – touched by God; God has removed his capacity for evil by keeping him in a lifelong state of infancy.
To have an informer on the IRA in the family was worse than having a murderer in the family. When the IRA killed informer, they buried them in unmarked graves. They were called the “Disappeared.”
The Informer
“North” by Sheamus Heeney
Common phrase in the North, “Whatever you say, say nothing.”
Self-Editing For Writers
How We Die Sherwin Nuland
Half-Life by Shelly Jackson
Jackson is the same woman who wrote the story called “Skin,” which exists tattooed, one word per person, on the skin of so many volunteers.

July 25
Last full day in Dublin. I’m waiting for a cabbie to come pick me up so I can take a package to the post office. I went crazy on books here, and I have to ship a bunch of them back home. Also, all of the documents I’ve accrued. The box is too heavy for me to carry to the post office. It’s almost 12 in. by 16 in. by 24 in.
It seems a shame to leave just when I’m starting to figure so many things out. Like the fact that Dubliners are so polite, they’ll give you directions if you ask for them, even if they’ve never heard of your destination. And multiply all units of time by at least two. If someone says it take ten minutes to walk somewhere, it will take at least twenty. The dispatcher said that the cab would be here in fifteen minutes, and it’s been 25, so I have five more minutes left to wait.
Went to La Cave last night for dinner. The meal was wonderful, but the room was very small and hot, and it got kind of emotional, since a lot of us weren’t sure we would see each other again. I’ll probably never see Dr. Halpin or Soibhan again. Mary Morissy is going to be teaching at George Washington University in the fall.
Anyway, I got pretty upset and had a small panic attack. I didn’t want to leave the room, and the idea of walking down the street was terrifying. It’s usually the opposite – I get claustrophobic and have to escape, but when the meal was over, I just wanted to hide under the table.
Might be going out tonight. Some people seemed interested in it, but there are also a lot of people with early flights tomorrow. I have to meet Mom and Dad at the airport at about 9am. We might have a chance to meet up with Martin for a cup of tea, which I know they were looking forward to.

What’s the Worst that Could Happen?

10 Thursday Jul 2008

Posted by in Dublin, Haplin, Iowa City, Ireland, Irish Writing Program, July 4, Maddie, Morrissey, Olivia, Poetry

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July 2
Inexplicably tired today. Will have to try and get to bed early.
Mary Morrissy’s story, “Gracefully, Not Too Fast,” choked me up. First, when Ruth, the main character, is outshined by Bridget, and again when Ruth learns that Bridget can’t read and decides not to help her, causing Bridget to run away from her singing lessons, possibly giving up her natural talent for singing forever. Now I’m really excited to have Morrissy as my instructor. Her writing is powerful, but it seems so effortless.
Aiden Mathews – Dr. Haplin had him as a student in early 1970s. Look for his anthology of short stories circa 1990. “Barber-Surgeons” was pretty intense.
Almost 11am – will have lunch at noon with Janice Perkins. She’s here today, and it’s her first time in Ireland. She’s looking around and watching us pick apart Morrissy’s story without any facial expression. I wonder what she’s thinking.
Everyone in class seems to be sick. More tea and sandwiches for me! I do have a little bit of a scratchy throat, but it’s probably because I slept with my window open last night and it got cold – plus, I had some whiskey last night before I went to bed, and whiskey always makes me want to smoke a lot. Monday and Tuesday were both very stressful. No one’s come to fix our washing machine. I’m down to my last two pairs of socks and underwear. It’s been more than a week since we reported it.
Elizabeth Bowen’s rules for dialogue: Brief, add to present knowldge, eliminate the routine in conversation (the ordinary, boring stuff, but sometimes things can seem ordinary while they’re really important to characterization – not sure I agree with all of this), convey the spontaneous, keep the story moving forward, reveal the nature of the character, show relationships between people.
Haplin told us that, prior to 1990, when filmmakers wanted to film in an area reminiscent of London post-blitz, they came to Dublin to film those scenes. “The Commitments” – Filmed in 1980s; Gabriel Byrne shoed it to his students and they asked him if there’s been a war going on then. That poor bastard’s jaw must have dropped to the floor. I hope these weren’t college kids. They probably were. It’s stopped shocking me when college kids say things that stupify Madeleine.
July 3
FUCK. Headache, sore throat, slight fever, cough.
At the Carmelite Church on Whitefriar. Churches are supposed to be quiet places, but they never are. There’s always someone talking or wearing clunky shoes or people refilling the candle boxes as if they’re working in a quarry. They dump the candles in like they’re dumping stones into a cart.
A man came in with his toddler to light a candle in front of St. Anthony, who is the Saint of miracles. Or so the plaque told me. Cute kid. I wondered what miracle they were asking for. The kid seemed happy enough, and his babbling echoed through the whole place.
I figured that as long as I was here I should light candles for Jo and Sue, since they were both Catholics, and even though this is a Carmelite church, I’m pretty sure they have something to do with the Catholics, so it’s close enough. I wasn’t sure which Saint to go to for dead people, so I just lit them in front of baby Jesus. Apparently, the child Jesus and adult Jesus are two different people. I guess that makes sense, though.
St. Anne – Mary’s mother. She’s standing over child Mary with her hands on Mary’s shoulders, like a protective mother. St. Albert – not sure what his deal is. Google! Ditto for Our Lady of Fatima. She looks an awful lot like the Virgin Mary.
The stained glass in this place is gorgeous. Wish I would have brought my camera so Jayne could see these windows. I’ll have to ask her how they can be so detailed.
Ten minutes of silence for class assignment.

Peter’s Pub is out of soup. I am sad. Stuck with sandwiches and tea. My blood sugar is so low I th ink I might pass out. Thank you, China, for the wonders of tea.
Tomorrow I’ll stop by Waterstones and see if my books are in. Then I have to go price tattoos. I’ll have to ask Fintan again what the name of that studio was. I wonder if would be overpriced around Grafton or if this is the best place for it. I haven’t quite figured out yet if Grafton is a tourist area or not. I suppose I could ask someone, but I would feel kind of silly. It’s certainly not as touristy as Temple Bar, at least.
The bar tenders at Peter’s are sweet. I think they can tell I’m sick because they keep asking me if I need anything else and if I’m doing all right. The regulars keep stopping down at this end of the bar to talk with them. The younger one says he just got back from Prague and was also in Berlin. Sounds like he had a wild time. Prague is definitely on my list of places to go before I die. I’ve been talking to some of the kids who are taking weekend trips to other European cities, but I’ve decided that I’d rather absorb as much of Ireland as possible. If I’m going to be in Amsterdam or Prague or Zurich, I’m going to want to spend a lot of time there, not just a weekend. I’m already wishing I could spend more time here. If I were in one of the flats closer to the city centre, or at least somewhere other than out in Yuppie Central, I don’t think I would ever want to leave.
As soon as I get home, I’m going to get into my pajamas and stay in them for twenty hours.
I think I’m going to write about Our Lady of Fatima. It’s definitely the coolest story. Three Portuguese kids supposedly saw the Virgin Mary out in a field somewhere, and the Virgin told them three secrets that they weren’t supposed to reveal until much later (this all happened in 1917). At one point, they were jailed and city officials threatened them with violence if they wouldn’t tell the secrets – one of them even said that he would boil the children alive one by one if they didn’t tell him the secrets, but the kids never said a word. That’s pretty fucking hardcore.
I stopped at the chemist and stocked up on cold medicine. I got aspirin, throat spray, and some cough syrup with codeine phosphate – just like that stuff my doctor always used to prescribe when I got respiratory infections. It even tastes the same. Also, I made a sad face and the lady behind the counter gave me a lollypop. Drugs and candy – best sick day ever!

July 4
Sick on the fourth. No hotdogs and beer for me. Sad.

July 8
It’s so very odd – I thought that people in the U.S. were supposed to be the most image-conscious, but since I’ve been here – I don’t remember the last time I’ve been so emotionally exhausted, trying like hell to maintain my self-esteem. What the hell is wrong with people? Last night, a guy at Doyle’s actually asked me if I was jealous of my friends, if I wish I was prettier. Then all of his friends started to laugh at me and make fun of me. I haven’t had anyone gang up on me like that since middle school. It was very weird. And it’s always the guys who don’t have anything to be proud of in the looks department. I think they pick on me because they’re miserable, pathetic creatures who will go through life missing the point completely, and then they’ll die miserable, pathetic creatures.
I never thought I’d say this, but I actually miss the guys in Iowa City. Compared to the men in Dublin, they’re sweet as pie. Maybe the Dubs are extra mean to me because I’m icky AND from the US. People do seem to think that people in the US are all pretty because of the pop culture we export – television and movies – and they seem to be offended when we don’t live up to that standard of beauty – resentful, even. As if I’m refusing to be attractive on purpose just to spite them. Ha! That’s actually a really funny idea – can’t stop giggling. People are looking at me.

July 9
I sent Dan Savage an email last night about how this shit is all piling up and I’m starting to lose my cool, and he sent me a nice one back reminding me how stupid and insecure men are in their 20s. They do tend to behave like 13-year-old girls. It made me feel a lot better.
Mom sent me a picture of the girls holding up pictures that said, “Hi, Mel!” Olivia says now that the best way to clear one’s mind and get new ideas is to hang up-side-down while sucking on a wedge of lemon.

Eight Answers to Eight Questions:
Marriage is obsolete. Love is real. I don’t know if I believe in God, but I definitely believe in nature. Homosexuality is one of nature’s methods of population control, so it benefits mankind and every other lifeform on earth. Men are okay – they don’t grow up fast enough for my taste. Women are okay, too – they’re probably just as retarded as men, but it’s not as noticeable because they’re not as loud and obnoxious – it seems like fewer of them insist that everyone hear their opinion about everything (Anne Coulter doesn’t count because she’s so rigid that her vagina has collapsed and fused shut). Children are great – it’s their parents who are unbearable. Free will is all we really have.

Stone archways down the line
In rows, touching each other
over running water with
tiny, tiny fish that are made up of
Less than 100 cells, palm trees, and fireworks.
They lay eggs and we eat them.
We wish we could eat the archways.
We wish we would drink the river
Until there is nothing left but mud.

When I’m this tired, it’s like I’m on drugs. But I can’t sleep when my stomach is cramping so, so bad. I can feel it in my knees and in my calves and the joints of my toes. I’m bloated – even my fingers feel fat. I’m going to make a bad first impression for Mary’s class.
I think Gary and Kevin are heterosexual life mates now.
I want to write a poem about bacon.
Cormac McCarthy – sounds familiar. The Road. Blood Meridian is about the Western United States.

Cill Aodain: As translated by someone who doesn’t read Gaelic

A nose taught an errand boy and lag the dull dog moon,
A star is not frail bridal ardor me mine shall,
Or cheer me in cream not stop far my choice,
Go seafaring my sons in large Chianti mouths.

I glare Chlorine mung bees and chad ocre
Is my dance to be three tusks me age old;
Go, Colette, munch radishes, go dead cuisinart mesa Anne
I bogus did hail Beatles and the moor.
O, Fagin, the hatchet to go – error in my crochet

Sea errors and ghost no seascapes in ice,
Nor swimming or cheers not in galling to those
Are scathing a mile nor fingers munch.
Still Android and dance go barter hatch bread,

To Samara’s and measles gouache sort,
My dad been see him shave I cart my daisy
The meadow and eyes dim have been in good.

I miss this kid, too:

Trapped Under a Tree During a Rainstorm

01 Tuesday Jul 2008

Posted by in Dublin, Ireland, Irish Writing Program, Suzanne Gold, University of Iowa

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June 23
I was watching what is apparently the Irish equivalent of PBS last night and they were talking about village boundary walls and how significant they were years and years ago. So happy I’m going to the Aran Isles, because that’s where they filmed most of the program. One man was talking about how his aunt wouldn’t let him and his cousins dig around the boundary wall because she said there might be bodies there. I don’t know how common this was, but, at least in his area, when women had miscarriages, they would take their unbaptized babies and bury them under the walls. This was typically done under cover of darkness, and he said miscarriages usually happened because the women would work too hard while they were pregnant.

Suzanne wrote a very cool piece about a grave digger/groundskeeper. I like the contrast between the living body and the dead – the disgusting nature of all bodies full of mucus and blood and come and carcinogens, and the decaying body, be it human or animal; which reminds me, I need to visit St. Michan’s Church.
The green room in Olympia Theater on Dame Street is supposed to be have a poltergeist, and people say that Johnathan Swift haunts St. Patrick’s Psychiatric Hospital. I should take a Ouija board over there and ask him what he thinks of my writing.

“Playboy of the Western World” supposedly caused riots – most popular explanation is that it used the word “shift” – ladies undergarment – outraged people.
“The Shadow of the Glen” – two spaces, two different spiritualities. In the house, it is dark and full of uncertainties and superstition. Outside, “by the grace of God,” nature will provide, the sun always rises in the morning in the East. Power of the oratory – “you’ve a fine bit of talk, stranger.”
Last night’s play was okay – “The Weir.” I think I’ll look it up so I can catch some of the things I missed early on because my ear was still adjusting to the rural accent.

June 24
Last night went to a pub called John Mulligan. It was very cool. I need to take my parents there. They had the best Guinness I’ve ever tasted.
I need to find the Hill of Tara. I think the story of Lugh the Long Handed and the Tuatha De Danann might be where all of the fairie lore originated. Supposedly, the Tuatha De Danann were in a battle against the Fomorians and were losing, and rather than surrender, they retreated into a mystical realm behind the hills.

June 26
Discussing The Book of Evidence. Character that’s given the most life in Freddie’s confession is the woman in the painting, for whom he imagines a very believable history. While I was reading it, I completely forgot that it was all supposed to be in Freddie’s imagination.
1960s – car bombs were generally placed in public areas – outside schools, parks, churches, shopping centers, and not outside police barracks or army bases. That seems very counter intuitive. I don’t get it. Was it to prove that they didn’t have any regard for human life and so were willing to do anything? And I guess if they only blew up police stations and such, then maybe policemen would become martyrs. By attacking the population, they create a distrust in government – people feel that their government can’t protect them – and a war weariness; people would demand that the gov. give in to terrorists to make the killing stop.

Took the bus home. Long ride, very nauseating. By the time I got off, I could barely stand up straight. Saw the garda arresting a group of people for no known reason. Woman was particularly annoying, trying desperately to play innocent and doing a terrible job. “Seriously? Are you serious? Seriously?” One of the guys standing nearby who was not wearing a uniform called one of the officers by his first name, Eddie, and let him use his mobile phone, presumably to call the station. I wonder if the first guy was just off duty or if he actually just knew this officer on a first-name basis. Probably the former, but it’s nice to pretend that the garda are just not so uptight. I was just thinking about how they don’t carry guns and how the UI just started allowing our campus cops to start carrying guns. Now that’s a good idea. I love going to class everyday knowing that I could be killed at any moment by some jackass with an eighth-grade education who thinks my phone is a gun. I always remember that time the cops busted into that artists studio without a warrant or anything and shot him dead because, they claimed, they thought his phone was a gun. I highly doubt it. That sounds like a bunch of dirty cops pulling a hit to me.
But anyway, there also wasn’t room in the garda’s car for all of the arrestees and the garda, too, so the guy with the mobile let them use his car. That would never happen in the US.
I hadn’t noticed until today when I heard one thunderclap while in class, but when it rains here, it’s usually just rain – there’s almost never a thunderstorm, whereas in Iowa, it hardly ever rains without it being a thunderstorm. It must have to do with the proximity to the ocean.

Malcolm MacArthur: real-life Freddie Montgomery (“Book of Evidence”) Tried to look him up on Wikipedia and it went directly to an article titled, “Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented.” There’s not a whole lot about him, except that he’s dangerous and killed a couple of people. Lame.
Northern Ireland trip tomorrow. I’ve been looking up some places that I’d like to see, if we get the chance. We haven’t gotten the trip itinerary yet.
The LIST:
Grace Neill’s (form. Kings Arms, 1611) Donaghadee, County Down.
Beltany Stone Circle, Tops Hill, Raphoe, County Donegal. “Baal Tinne” = “Fire of Baal” = Sun god Baal, dates back to 2000 BC, older than Stonehenge.
Carrickfergus Castle, County Antrim, 1185 = oldest intact castle in Ireland. also Dunluce Castle ruins in Nr. Portrush, 1300s.
Staying in tonight. Have to catch the bus at IES at 9am. If the Luas isn’t running, I’ll have to run, run.

Dublin Buses Are Enormous

25 Wednesday Jun 2008

Posted by in Dublin, Grandma All, Howth, Ireland, Irish Writing Program, Jayne, Kris, Maddie, Martin Roper, Olivia, Suzanne Gold

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I told people I would keep a blog while I’m here. So I’m going to try it. So here we go.

June 14
Walked around the city centre today. There are so many beautiful buildings and streets, but somebody thought it would be a good idea to erect a giant, steel stiletto right off the O’Connell bridge in honor of the millennium. So there are old brick houses that have been there for over one hundred years on stone streets where James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Beckett, O’Casey, etc., etc., lived and worked and walked and wrote about, and then, looking completely out of place, someone managed to insert an enormous monument to the phallus that actually looks dumber than the Washington Monument. It makes me sad. The tower that was there before was very cool. Danielle showed me a picture of it on her laptop – it was a big, stone column called Nelson’s Pillar that the IRA bombed in the 60s because… they like to blow shit up? The Pillar was supposed to be controversial in its own day, too, though, which makes me wonder if one hundred years from now, people will think of it as an irreplaceable part of the city’s landscape. I think it’s official name is the Spire of Dublin, but Martin said it’s also known as the Stiffy on the Liffey, which I prefer.

June 16
Today is Bloomsday, though you can’t tell down here near the Institute for International Education of Students (IES) building on the Liffey at 8:45 in the morning. News from Iowa says that the sandbag levees have broken. Hopefully they were successful in cleaning out the art museum. Materials in the library should be fine. Also, the river has apparently crested at Cedar Rapids. I’ve heard people here talking about it now and again. I’ve tried to gain sympathy/free Guinness by letting the locals know that my university is underwater and my neighborhood has been evacuated, but so far no dice.
Sitting in front of Portobello College, now. Had our very first official class, and later we’re meeting with our drama teacher. We don’t start actually workshopping until sometime next week. It appears that this program is going to be just as intensive as everyone says. I hope I still have plenty of time to let myself become absorbed into the population. I’ve been in contact with Patch about some cool places to hang out.
The walking tour on Saturday was nice, too. Our tour guide was also a writer, and we bonded over a mutual love of Guinness and Jameson. He also explained some of the other rules of cricket that I’ve never understood, but I forgot to ask him about pelota. I hear it’s only played in rural Ireland anymore. I’m not even sure I’m spelling it right. At lunch after the walking tour, Martin told me that he wants to keep a journal entry cataloging the weird things that I say, though I’m not exactly sure which weird things he was talking about – good weird things? He also wants us to write our own journals about our experiences here. Could be good to send to Grandma – with a few edits, of course, but I’m sure she’d love to hear how I am enjoying her own grandmother’s homeland. I should also drop off her post card at the post office today, along with the ones for my nieces and for Jayne.

June 17
At International on Wicklow Street. Martin Roper’s sister’s fella bartends or manages this place, or something like that. Everyone is staring at the soccer match on TV. I asked for a Guinness and the bartender asked me twice if I needed two. I guess single girls don’t come here often. Waiting on the rest of the group. I think they’re lost.
There’s an awful lot of woodwork in this bar. Low stools around the tables, copper pots with handles hanging over the alcove where the cash register is. I wonder what used to be there. There are barrels in the wall behind the bar that maybe used to dispense whiskey? Or beer. Or both. Mirrors and a clock in the center that doesn’t work.
Shoibhan was right about the Irish men; they stay clear of me unless they’re drunk. This guy says, “I hate you people.”
“Writers?” I asked, as I was writing in my journal at the time.
“Americans,” he said, like I’m the idiot.
Then he went on some tirade about me being rich and spoiled and lazy. I told him I thought he was confusing television with reality, but I should have just stayed quiet, which I figured out immediately after he started in again, this time pretty much repeating what he’d said before, but faster and angrier. I couldn’t really understand him because of his slur and accent combined, but I did catch a few unoriginal insults before the bar tender kicked him out, then apologized to me as if it was his own fault. Much nicer than at home, where the bar tender would have watched with a blank stare while I was accosted. Who would guess I’d meet an Irishman who couldn’t hold his liquor to the point that he’s drunk at 9:30 in the evening?
Every time I glance up at the television, there’s something strange on, like a pop-eyed puppet with a huge shock of red hair. Or people in nice suits who look like newscasters sitting next to people in brightly colored woolen hats and sweaters and both of them are making silly faces at each other.

June 18
The Winding Stair is the name of the bookstore that Shoibhan’s friend owns – over the Ha’Penny Bridge. Must get the following: Dislocation: Stories from a New Ireland, Seamus Dean’s Reading in the Dark.
John Swift was kind of a dick, I guess. Promoting the superiority of the English/Anglo-Irish? I still notice this, actually – people not recognizing individuality and assuming that the location of one’s birth automatically means that one embraces the values and culture of that place. Or perhaps it’s thought of in a racial context, but that’s just as ridiculous.
I learned that if I mimic the Irish intonation when asking for a drink, or anything else, in a loud, crowded place, I don’t have to repeat myself two or three times to make myself understood. I asked one of the fellas I met last night what our accent sounds like, which is one of my favorite questions. I never actually got his answer, because he wasn’t quite sure what I was asking him. I’ve decided that the Dublin accent makes me think of fairie tales; it’s very comforting. People from Southwestern Ireland sound like pirates – yaarrr!
Apparently, they don’t know where the disease came from that caused the potato famine. 1840s – 1860s; population of 8 mil. on the island, dropped to 4 mil. by the end of the famine; millions either emigrated or starved to death.
I feel endless joy when I walk around this city and remember that it was founded by the Vikings.
June 19
The Winding Stair is a nice little bookstore – across the Ha’Penny Bridge on the North side, turn left, and it’s across the street from the Liffey – though I couldn’t find everything I needed there. I found Flann O’Brien and Seamus Deane, but no Margaret Atwood or Dislocation. Reagan, the man who owns the place, chided me for carrying too many bags, but it’s difficult when I have to make several stops and travel for miles. I’ll have to stop at Hodges and Figgis again, then I have to get more eggs and breakfast sausages. I can’t wait to read Flann O’Brien. He sounds like the type of author that I appreciate most; morbid humorist, satirist, and if he has a love for killing off his characters, I might just cream my jeans.
I brought my camera with me on this walk, but so far I haven’t felt compelled to pull it out. Not sure why. I think it’s because I’m still uncomfortable with being seen as an obvious tourist and foreigner. I recently read an article called, “Top 5 Reasons We Hate Tourists” and it seemed pretty accurate. For an international hub, there are a lot of people who are intolerant of those who hail from other countries. Maybe it’s because no one used to come here until their economy started to boom. I would also find that irritating, I guess. People are more like vultures than they like to believe. The wealthy probably come here for their vacations, buy crap from the street vendors, hassle the locals, then move on to the next fashionable spot – is it Milan? Zurich? I’m not sure, though I do know that if I were ever to go on a European vacation, it would be to Spain. It’s the California of Europe, to paraphrase J.G. Ballard.
Cathach Books is a rare book shop off Dawson St., on the North side of Duke St. I went in there and handled some books signed by Samuel Beckett and Joyce and Heeney. I think the boy behind the counter knew what I was doing and that I couldn’t actually afford to buy any of the books, but he didn’t say anything.
Neither Hodges and Figgis or Waterstone had the books I needed, so I had to order them.
It’s starting to get chilly and rain. Now I’m sitting at a coffee shop called West Coast Coffee and is across the street from the rare bookstore. It’s nice because it’s much less crowded, and there is no one staring me down and babbling in French.
The police here are so much better than the sadists in the US. They are actually helpful, and they don’t automatically treat you like a criminal the second they lay eyes on you. They call them the garda here, and though I’ve always had a thing for men who have to wear special clothes to go to work, today was the first time I ever saw a policeman who I found attractive. Not in the type of way that I’d be willing to follow him around and break a few laws just to get him to talk to me, but it is refreshing to know that just because a man has a badge and carries a weapon doesn’t mean he’s automatically a prick. They can actually be intelligent and charming. Who knew?

June 21
Woke up this morning planning to go to the Temple Bar food and book market, but when I looked out the window and saw all of the blowing rain, I decided I’d rather wait until tomorrow. So I rolled over and went back to bed.
Ilse’s birthday is today. Suzanne and her other roommates are planning a surprise taco party, but I don’t know what time it is.

On the Luas. Pierce and John are apparently keeping Ilse occupied while the taco party is being prepared, and they’re having trouble. So I’m going over to Doyle’s to order a Guinness and drink it very, very slowly. Doyle’s is right next to Trinity College. Pretty small and low-key. I haven’t been there, yet, but the others have. I imagine that on a Saturday in the early evening it should be pretty quiet. Quarter Finals are today.

Taco party was a success. They even made their own guacamole. It was delicious. I brought Ilse some cider and had some myself – it was orange and fizzy like Squirt. Now everyone is out at the pubs, but I decided to call it a night to get some writing done. Still haven’t finished my assignment, and I can’t get much good work done with a hangover. Not that it’s good work, anyway.
At Doyle’s, a man came up to our table and asked us if the Guinness there was any good. I told him we were from the United States and didn’t know the difference between good Guinness and bad Guinness. Apparently, the Guinness at Doyle’s is bad. He told us to go around the corner to a place called Mulligan’s. I will have to try it. It’s nice when people are helpful and don’t treat us like shit because our great leader can barely put a sentence together.
Missed the Quarter Finals. Rugby was on at Doyle’s and we were trying to describe the scrum to Ilse, but none of us is actually familiar enough with rugby to properly explain it to anyone else. It looks goddamn painful. There’s nothing more arousing than watching grown men beat the piss out of each other.
Roommate is watching “Sex and the City.” It’s agonizingly boring no matter what time zone one is in.

June 22
Didn’t go to Temple Bar again. High winds and rain. One or the other would be fine, but both means that my umbrella probably wouldn’t last long. I did need food, though, so I had to wait until around one in the afternoon to make the trek to Tesco. I was out of milk and cheese. Also got pasta, chicken, laundry det., etc. Got up to the counter, and the machine wouldn’t read either of my cards. So the man who was checking me out told me to go to the ATM. Waited in line for about ten minutes, waited for the machine to process my card, finally got back to the line and there was another man there, who asked me, “Are these things yours?” in a very accusatory voice. I would have thought that the other guy would have explained it to him. So I told him the story, and he checked me out without looking at me or saying anything else. It was odd. I couldn’t figure out if I had done something wrong or if the new guy was just a douchebag.
Braved the winds to get home, then had some bread and cheese while I settled in to do homework. Only four pages done on the assignment. At least two more to go.
Rommate Chrissy just got back from Cork. I asked her if the horny old man held her up-side-down to kiss the Blarney stone, and that was an affirmative. Too bad she missed the massive nude photo shoot at Blarney Castle. I may not be very comfortable with my body, but I’d tear my clothes off in a second to be part of an enormous naked photo shoot at Blarney Castle. Woohoo! Spring Break!
I should make plans to go to Howth. Patch said it was his favorite trip. Roommate Danielle went there this weekend. The highlight was the National Transport Museum, which is essentially a barn full of old vehicles. She said she was the only one there.
Tonight, orange-pepper chicken for dinner and baked potato. Must also send email to Grandma. Kris emailed me and said that Madeleine and Olivia got their postcards. I sent Olivia one with a happy-looking pony and Madeleine one with a picture of a pint of Guinness and a plate of what appear to be oysters that read, “Traditional Irish Breakfast.” Haven’t a clue where that came from, but whatever. The next one I’m sending has a photo of a set of statues commemorating the potato famine. They’re all of people who look exactly like skeletons and who appear to be carrying what belongings they can as if they’re going to a boat to flee the country. The statues are so lifelike that it’s easy to pretend they’re actual people – that there were people who looked exactly like that in Dublin in the 1850s. Would be a good lesson for a couple of kids who always seem to be complaining about the food on their plates.
The washing machine hates me.